How Can Experimental Psychology Inform Game Design? David Brodbeck Department of Psychology, Algoma University and Laurentian University Jeb Havens 1 st Playable Productions

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Introduction What makes people come back to games? Why are some games hits? Why are some games misses? We are applying science to art The science we are applying is experimental psychology, especially learning, memory and cognition People have been playing games as long as there have been people

Learning Theory Acquisition Asymptote Extinction Spontaneous recovery Pretty much universal

Reinforcement Anything that increases the likelihood of a response is a reinforcer Food reinforces pecking in pigeons Exams reinforce studying Save points in Splinter Cell Skinner

Maintaining behaviour Not Continuous reinforcement Use of partial reinforcement –Subject never knows when next reinforcer is coming, so behaviour is maintained Variability Ratio strain –Just takes a few reinforcers to bring the subject back –Now pull the ratio back up

Chaotic systems Simple interacting components Emergent behaviours and strategies Might miss a reward Not frustration but curiosity

Performance vs. Observation People can learn by observation Online games, multiplayer God mode Reinforce players for staying in a game after they are ‘killed’ They get better simply through observation Not aware they are in a tutorial

Divided Attention Finite amount of perceptual resources Dichotic listening Dichotic watching! We can actually give information that is not consciously processed, but still affects behaviour

Design implications Inputs and outputs not in a hardware and software sense but in a human sense Subject learns best when actively participating However, hints can be given without awareness –Makes difficulty levels less transparent

Implicit learning Most of the learning that ends up taking place is probably implicit The controls, for example, of a given genre USUALLY are the same Keep it consistent Player does not know he or she is being taught what is going on, thinks ‘I figured this out myself!’

Memory Atkinson and Shiffrin STM has a limited capacity –7 +/- 2 Chunking and becoming an expert Implication is that early on we can only give players so much at once, but once they become experts more can be thrown at them

Implicit memory again As mentioned, much of the learning is implicit We can drop implicit hints Associations, fragments of information that are filled in later

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Conclusion We know that most designers use these principles implicitly We are not trying to constrain the art of game design We want playable and successful games Beta test time may be reduced Games evolved with us, so it is sensible to think about how we think